When I was younger, after a very difficult early childhood, my state of mind was very different than now. In trying to describe it to others, I often
get some who say that that is the desirable state of enlightenment.
I continue to find this questionable, as it was void of any emotional pleasure or appreciation of life. I find it hard to believe that people actually
seek to become numb, and completely at the whim of others and their environment.

Basically, I think my ego had been diminished to such a great degree it was barely existant. I didn't have much of a concept of self. I couldn't
answer questions like what I wanted, what I liked, how I am in this way or that. If pressed, I could come up with a basic thing like that I am female,
and my age, because I was told these facts and told to repeat them.

When left alone, I had no action to take, I did not play. I would sit and listen to sounds around me, look at colors around me. I was completely in
the moment, yes, but if someone wanted to take my life, I would just let them. I had no will. I wanted nothing, I had no personal opinion.

Now, with the contrast of my experience now to refer to, I would say I simply projected my concept of self outward- I was all that I was experiencing
in the moment- I was the others around me, I was the objects around me, I was the events. I felt emotions only second hand, through others. If a
person walked in filled with an emotion, I would feel it, then when they left the room, it was gone. I had no sense of choice, of being a point from
which choices could be made.

As I got older, this meant people did what they wanted to my body, to beat it or rape it, and I only began to build a sense of self after I had a
child, and by contrast, began to find a self in me that could choose to protect it and care for it (and had to).
So I began to learn to think as an "I" with power, for his sake, and it grew from there.

Because of that experience, I will continue to provide a counter-voice to those who press the idea of repressing the ego as much as possible in order
to become enlightened, and no longer have ambition, future goals or desires, concepts of a personal past or future. I am not at all convinced that all
people need to do that (though maybe some do). Some people need to BUILD an ego, construct one, and re-enforce it.

If someone really needs to destroy their ego, then they should simply put themselves in a situation or relationship in which they get abused in
extreme ways and repeatedly. Until their defenses are destroyed, and their sense of self flees the human container.

And we're back to the traditional values upon martyrism as the pathway to enlightenment. Only your "bad" ego flees suffering and death. Only the ego
has an opinion about living or dying, pain and pleasure.

I don't care.
I do not search The Truth, I am not convinced any such thing exists.
This is what I feel and think, this is my perspective, right now, and I am sure that I feel and think that right now.
That's all that I need to be sure of.

I need no confirmation from anything or anyone exterior. Subjectivity may be all we have access to on this plane, and every belief that one has found
the objective truth may be an illusion- we cannot know. So I don't bother with that.

All these things, loss of ego.. whatever is what happens when you become of the Spirit.

It is.. (stupid I even have to say this) It is what some would call "retarded" to try to create yourself as if you were to be of the Spirit without
it. It's destructive and unattainable without the Spirit itself. It's cutting yourself off of your nature. The physical body must be in function of
the Spirit, that's what it's called.

Attaining the fruits of the Spirit without Spirit itself, that is what can be desired.

There is a goal, people, you must pray to reach what you hunger for so much. Praying is simple! You can't do it by yourself. There is an exterior
something, a "force", a Spirit to take you through life. You don't need to emerge from nothing!

All these things, loss of ego.. whatever is what happens when you become of the Spirit.

It is.. (stupid I even have to say this) It is what some would call "retarded" to try to create yourself as if you were to be of the Spirit without
it. It's destructive and unattainable without the Spirit itself. It's cutting yourself off of your nature.

Nope. I don't agree. You are free to your opinion and perspective.

It suggests that in constructing a self concept, one destroys any sense or awareness of Oneness, or being part of a larger whole.
I do not find that to be the case- I find both states of awareness existing simultaneously (I can be self aware, while also aware of the state of
timeless, space-less, oneness) . I can be aware that this "I" is a continually self creating form on a mental plane, a individual form on the
physical plane, while only pure consciousness flowing through these forms on another.

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